HOUSTON - The kids were naughty, Dad put the presents on eBay instead of under the tree — and Mom's been crying ever since. Now, even the tree's down.

Saturday morning was sure not to be very jolly for three brothers — 9, 11 and 15 — who didn't straighten up when their father told them Santa wasn't too pleased with their fighting, cuss words and obscene gestures.

Dad and Mom had warned their sons that the Nintendo (news - web sites) DS video system — and the three games that go with it — were headed for the auction block if they didn't get their act together.

"No kidding. Three undeserving boys have crossed the line. Tonight we sat down and showed them what they WILL NOT get for Christmas this year. I'll be taking the tree down tomorrow," the man announced in his eBay posting.

"If you don't buy them, we'll return them to the store," the seller known online as magumbo_2000 reported on the site.

Thursday night, the auction wound down with bidding at $465.01 — below the price the man had set. He said he would probably list the items again.

A single day of particularly bad behavior set the Christmas crackdown in motion.

"These are normally really good kids," said Dad, who asked the Houston Chronicle not to reveal his name. Dad even admits he and Mom are partly to blame for being too lax at times.

But enough was enough. The warning of an impending sale came earlier in the week at a sit-down between offspring and parents.

"We told them they were destroying each other and the calm and peace in the household. It had to stop," said the man, who did tell the paper that he works as an information technology specialist and lives in Pasadena.

The boys pledged to be nice, but were back to their old ways the next morning.

That night, Dad announced that he would indeed be putting $700 in video games up for sale on eBay. The oldest boy double-dared his dad to make good on his word.

I found this article on CNN.com. This guy lost his jaw to cancer and, using stem cells, doctors were able to grow him a new one. Take that George W. Bush!

LONDON, England (AP) -- A German who had his lower jaw cut out because of cancer has enjoyed his first meal in nine years -- a bratwurst sandwich -- after surgeons grew a new jaw bone in his back muscle and transplanted it to his mouth in what experts call an "ambitious'' experiment.

According to this week's issue of The Lancet medical journal, the German doctors used a mesh cage, a growth chemical and the patient's own bone marrow, containing stem cells, to create a new jaw bone that fit exactly into the gap left by the cancer surgery.

Tests have not been done yet to verify whether the bone was created by the blank-slate stem cells and it is too early to tell whether the jaw will function normally in the long term.

But the operation is the first published report of a whole bone being engineered and incubated inside a patient's body and transplanted.

Stem cells are the master cells of the body that go on to become every tissue in the body. They are a hot area of research with scientists trying to find ways to prompt them to make desired tissues, and perhaps organs.

But while researchers debate whether the technique resulted in a scientific advance involving stem cells, the operation has achieved its purpose and changed a life, said Stan Gronthos, a stem cell expert at the Institute of Medical and Veterinary Science in Adelaide, Australia.

"A patient who had previously lost his mandible (lower jaw) through the result of a destructive tumor can now sit down and chew his first solid meals in nine years ... resulting in an improved quality of life,'' said Gronthos, who was not connected with the experiment.

A dragonfly has a life span of 24 hours. A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds. A "jiffy" is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second. A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes. A snail can sleep for three years. Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer. All 50 states are listed across the top of the Lincoln Memorial on the back of the $5 bill. Almonds are a member of the peach family. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain. Babies are born without kneecaps. They don't appear until the child reaches 2 to 6 years of age. Butterflies taste with their feet. Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds. Dogs only have about 10. "Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt". February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.In the last 4,000 years, no new animals have been domesticated. If the population of China walked past you, in single file, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction. If you are an average American, in your whole life, you will spend an average of 6 months waiting at red lights. It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open. Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors. Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable. No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple. On a Canadian two dollar bill, the flag flying over the Parliament building is an American flag. Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing. Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite. Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated. "Stewardesses" is the longest word typed with only the left hand and "lollipop" with your right. The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing. The cruise liner, QE2, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns. The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket. The sentence: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter of the alphabet. The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze completely solid. The words 'racecar,' 'kayak' and 'level' are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left (palindromes). There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar. There are more chickens than people in the world. There are only four words in the English language which end in "dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous There are two words in the English language that have all five vowels in order: "abstemious" and "facetious." There's no Betty Rubble in the Flintstones Chewables Vitamins. Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur. TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard. Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance Women blink nearly twice as much as men. Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks; otherwise it will digest itself.

umm. i'm not really sure what to say. cause...its really late at night but i figured i should make an introduction post, cause Cheri's community is awesome.i don't really have anything to post here...although i get the vibe i can post almost anything i want...right? correct me if i'm wrong.

i think i'll just ramble a bit and tell you a bit more about myself...cause i'm assuming you care?

i have a dog. his name is speck. he's a bishon frise and he's adorable. i love music, poetry, drama, singing, acting, writing and a lot of other stuff.

Cheri has been on my ass to post here, so I am posting a website from the future! MUHAHAHAHA!!!!! This is the website that Cathedra makes 20 years from now! Behold:http://www.zihuatanejo-rentals.com/sister.htmLook upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!!!!!

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to my community. feel free to share your thoughts... what i would most like to see here are things which are uncommon... interesting pictures (either found on the internet or taken by the posting individual), artwork, strange stories... just about anything. it can be humorous or disturbing... just maek it worth reading... see the rules before joining... send me a request of some sort and i'll get back to you as soon as possible.